In Medias Res

It was Just a Mental Statement...

This year has been a challenging one for me and my family.  There has been a heathy dose of tragedy, drama and standing firm.  My husband and I have been working hard to make better choices and taking a good look at the unhealthy patterns in our lives.  We want to be the best parents and partners we can be, but sometimes this is extremely hard.  Most of the time, the things that have been holding us back for years are the hardest to let go of.

My husband and I have a lot in common.  One of the larger commonalities is a history of depression in both of our families.  I don't want to elaborate on my husband's family history, except to say much of it flared up this year, but I can on my own.

Depression has been a theme in my family for a few generations.  I would gather it goes back much farther, but ancestry.com is kinda vague about it.  Anxiety, depression's ugly little sister, is something that is even more prevalent.  When researching my book based on my mother's family in the 1880's, I read a lot of letters and personal accounts and they are littered with references to anxious personalities and workaholics. 

So, of course, if you have a big history of depression and anxiety in your family, it is only natural for you also to have a grand ole tradition of addiction in it too.  My oh my, we have a whole cast of self destructive addicts on both sides of my family who blew up and wasted the talents they had been given.  

I know, I know, why am I giving you a mental health background check when any reader of this blog will not be placing me into a hospital for suicide watch or treating me in group therapy?  Well, I've noticed this year, a trend online and elsewhere, when well-known or lesser known performers/personalities/famous people (or just well know people in certain social circles or families) self destruct due to addiction, depression or any other mental health issue.  I've noticed, especially on facebook, that people, who have never mentioned the victim before, are suddenly very, very concerned about this person's illness, are suddenly this person's long lost best friend or say things like, "If you think someone might harm themselves...," as if they, themselves might have been the one to stop that heated freight train by tweeting something rosy the day the victim self destructed.

Don't get me wrong, I am in no way saying people should not be actively trying to raise awareness about mental illness or that they shouldn't do all they can to help those with mental illness/addictions.  My concerns are about the timing of these efforts and only some of the content.  So often, this concern and call to action only happens after the person is dead and I speak from personal experience on this one.

After I had my baby, two years ago, I was diagnosed with postpartum depression/anxiety.  It is only until recently that it occurred to me, after the depression has lingered these two years, that I have been battling these issues on a smaller scale for years.  It would not seem a mystery, that truth, to those on the outside looking in.  I did have an eating disorder, a chronic physical illness that would depress anyone and I have been in and out of therapy since my early twenties.  For me, however, admitting that depression is another, chronic, long term illness that I've been saddled with for the rest of my life, has been a slow train on a very broken railway.  There is a bit of relief that comes with it, a sort of "Well, that explains a lot," release that has finally arrived for me, but that doesn't mean I'm completely at home with it.  Like I said at the top, I'm working at it, me and my family are working on it together.

The thing is, having had huge health problems and mental struggles, I have found that a lot of the people who flock toward you when you are having an easy time of things, when you are having success in your career and personal life, all those people who are eager to be near you and support your efforts — they seem to slink away when illness, mental or otherwise pokes its dirty little head out of the sand.  This is old hat to me, I've learned that my aunt's adage of people only needing six real friends and close family members in life, three for each side of the coffin, ring sadly true.  I gotta say though, it doesn't make the old hat any less sad and frustrating.  For me, I accept this.  For others, it pisses me off, especially when a huge outpouring of concern and insistence that people become aware of mental health issues comes after the death of a person.  I can't help but wonder, what would have happened if all this concern, this trumpeting of mental health awareness, had happened before the person quietly left this world thinking they were all alone?

I do know, with some people, no matter what, they will self destruct.  I also know that when you are in that dark pit, it is hard to see the number of hands reaching in to lift you up. I also know, especially in the case of addicts, that getting distance between you and the person is the healthiest thing you can do for them. I'm not blaming those people who truly cared, struggled to get a healthy distance and tried to help those sliding down the spiral for not doing a good enough job.  

I guess what I sometimes wish is that, those who did nothing, who just watched and ducked the dark times, that they be vocal about that.  Be vocal about how hard it is to stand by during the "for worse" times, about how it is scary to stay around for the ugly parts of a friend or family member's illness.  To drop the whole, I was best friends with this person/they were such a great guy/or girl/super avenger for mental illness for the day, attitude.  I actually think that would be the most powerful thing you could do for those with mental illness — to start a dialogue about the realities of being there for someone who is suffering.  It would, I know, be an honest relief from the norm for myself and I would venture to guess, many others who have suffered/do suffer for depression, anxiety or addiction.

I don't think this would be about blaming the, or labelling people as fair weather friends, I think it would be about understanding that it is not personal, that it is how people survive and thrive in business and society. It would shine a light on the true reality of walking through this world, amongst your peers, with a mental illness.  It would help those who suffer to know that the mass exodus that comes along with mental or physical illness is not specific to their circle, it is the norm the world over.  

I, too, have been guilty of ducking other's disasters, in the past, in order to keep my own mental sanity afloat.  I am not guiltless.  I understand that side as well.  I just wish the pages of facebook and twitter were littered with those admitting the same, instead of what is the standard lately.

Let's face it, being around depressed people, can be, well, depressing.  That, to me, is not the problem.  The problem is, in my humble opinion, the lack of honesty about that and the tendency to paint over that gap with a happy, pretty, silence brush after the person has passed.  

It is altogether human to do this, it is not unlike, when Liz Taylor died, all you saw were pictures of her from her Cat on a Hot Tin Roof days.  I mean she did look like that for 20 years or so, but for the more considerable length of her long life, she was older looking and fabulously eccentric in her presentation.  But, everyone wants to remember her with the happy, pretty silence coat of paint, not the parts they think were less befitting of her iconic image —  you know, like aging.

My rant is almost at an end and I hope the ten people that read this are not offended.  I've just found myself increasingly moved to speak on the subject and needed to speak my addled mind about it.

365 Kind-er-create - Blue Skies and Bananas

 

 

Today was a busy day with Vi in toe for most of it.

For my kind deed today, I passed off a banana to a homeless woman.  She looked a bit unimpressed, but took it anyway.  Her sign did say she was hungry...maybe just hungry for meth, but who knows?

I've been teaching Vi to sing rounds for over a year.  She usually only does it in private and I haven't been able to get her on video.  For my creative thing today, I caught her on tape singing Blue Skies (she loves that song for some reason) with me.  Dad is watching in the background and sings a bit too.  Binoo makes a guest appearence.

Enjoy:

 

365 Days of One Thing Creative and One Thing Kind

I've been so frustrated lately, in my everyday life, with the limitations I have, as a SAHM, when it comes to creating anything.  I've focused a lot on what is not possible anymore, like performing improv for free on the weekend nights, doing theatre for little pay, or just getting out in general, that I've painted myself in a box that has no door.

When I was a very young, and already had a head full of worries, my mother used to make me list three things at the end of the day that I did well.  Some nights, this was extremely difficult, but it always made me feel better.

So, I've decided to keep it small and commit to one thing I do, each day, that is creative.  It can be drawing a picture with my daughter, writing sixteen bars of a song, styling my dog's hair, writing a few good lines...and I'll be doing this for a year.  I'm going to be posting the majority of it, most likely at weeks end.

Tonight, I wrote a few bars and recorded it on Garageband.  The verse and chorus is called Edinburgh...it is rough and not finished.  This is good for me in so many ways, to just put something unfinished out there for everyone to see and to commit to something positive each day — it is a lot for a pessimist to take on.

I've also decided to do one thing kind each day as well.  Apparently, most research on the human condition shows that it isn't fame, success, money, blow jobs that make you happy - it is being kind to others.  Cheezy as hell, yes?  Whelp, I'm going to chance it and give 'er a go.  

Today, by the way, even though it freaks me out to drive in Toronto, I drove Mike to work.  I'd call that kind.

 

 

 

Edinburgh

 

Raison D'etre - Part One

I have some questions to ask myself that I haven't even thought were applicable to me anymore.  I've been at the business of being a professional artist for so long, I'm afraid to say, I've forgotten what the point of it was in the first place, you know, besides making a living at it.  

My practical, business side has always served me well, I was never one of those art for the purpose of making art kind of people.  I was raised by two extremely talented business people, who are creative thinkers, but always put the dollars and sense first.  It seemed to follow that I would pick up on that no matter what trade I did (and it is a trade, acting, isn't it?)  

But here's the prickly thing though, what happens when business dries up, or when life takes over and makes it difficult to work at the business of it, what happens then?  I mean, I didn't sit around in grade school dreaming about how much I really wanted sit around waiting to see if someone might give me a job....which tends to be one of the main things you must be good at as an actor.

So...what did I dream about when I was in grade school?  What is it that I loved, that inspired me to give up a hearty set of grades, academic opportunities and the possibility of having a career in which people didn't ask what my real job was at every non-industry party?

Whelp, I wanted to write about those things, the things I've been in love with since I was a child, those bit and pieces that lit up the happy places in my little mind and made me want see more and do  more.  I'm hoping that they might light the way to a small corner of passion I can focus on and let the rest fall where it may.

My first love was books.  I don't remember a time where I was not being read to or reading myself.  I read by myself early, I think, in part, because my parents got tired of reading longer children's books to me every night.  

I must have been no more than 6 years old when, after much begging, my mother bought me the Little House books, on the condition I read them by myself.  Any word I didn't understand I was supposed to yell out towards my parents bedroom to ask and they would tell me.  I spent the first couple nights yelling every other word and then, miracle of miracle, the training wheels fell off.

I still own those books, the ones I learned to read on.  I've moved across coasts and countries — those books have always followed me.  

I was often in my own little world as a child, imagining I was wrapped up in furs, deep in a wardrobe in England, instead of sitting in a room full of boxes ready to move on to yet another small, midwestern town.

I saw myself in Lucy, Laura, Margaret,Dorothy,Pandora, Alice and the March sisters.  Although, their lives were infinitely more interesting than mine.  

I adored my stories and was hardly ever without one.  Yes, I was athletic and active, but nothing compared to sitting in my room, listening to music and reading a new book.  I could fall off the face of the earth with a good book in hand and never lift my head from it.

Very early on, I started writing little stories as well, I guess it was a natural progression.  It often got me attention in school and with my mother, who, above all loved authors and had a great passion for the written word (still does).  I also remember, even at a very young age, being hyper critical of my writing, for those same reasons.

I dreamed, not of being a famous actor or singer, but of travelling and becoming an author. I thought about the characters I would create and the message in the bottle I would leave for some other girl to discover a long time on from 1986.

When I hit double digits, two books followed me around like loyal dogs, Gone with the Wind and Jane Eyre.  Jane and Scarlett were the angel and devil on my shoulders — in a way, that has never changed.

As an adult, I have new literary friends and idols, but the first loves of your lives are the ones you remember the most.

I know it was my love of character, of throwing myself wholly into the lives of fictional people and worlds that brought me to acting, but that, is another story and I don't want to talk about loving one person in the same breath as I do another.

So, I'll give them all their due: music, books, drama, improv —  later. They all merit a blog or two.

 

 

 

 

 

Plate-Glass Persona

I was quite nervous actually publishing this.  I thought, would I offend someone or would they see me as weak?  There is a lovely freedom to being at the bottom of things though — everyone doesn't much give a crap about what you say.  It is very refreshing.

I've been thinking a lot about how it is I ever became an actor.  I've always thought I sort of stumbled on to it and had no other qualifications for doing anything else — so what option did I really have but to push on and do my best.  I imagined most of my "talent" was just really hard work, a seriously competitive drive, a few shiny curtains, some yellow paste and glitter fashioned into some tacky facade that could be taken as talent, if you didn't look close enough.  God knows, certain teachers at theatre school would probably agree, bless their horribly flamboyant eyewear.

However, now that I popped out my kid and  my acting "career" is in one of those lulls that would leave the most enthusiastic professional's nipples colder than Ann Coulter's heart, some fog has lifted about why I devoted my life to this masochistic trade and how I am uniquely suited for it.  The problem is, for the first time ever really, I'm not sure those reasons are all that good for me or that I want to continue soldiering on under them.

 

You see, my greatest talent, the one thing I know for sure about myself, beyond a great many things, is that I excel at knowing, even anticipating what it is people want me to be.  

It served me well when I was in sales.  I knew the second the poor sucker walked through that mall entrance exactly who it was they wanted to sell them jeans, in what tone, with what flattery (or lack of) and with what background.  If someone was paying me to do that, I had no problem just being whatever it was any random man I had a read on wanted.

I remember some years ago watching Gosford Park for the first time.  Helen Mirren's character tells Kelly McDonald about her own abilities, 

"What gift do you think a good servant has that separates him from the others? It’s the gift of anticipation. And I’m a good servant.  I’m better than good, I’m the best—I’m the perfect servant. I know when they’ll be hungry, and the food is ready; I know when they’ll be tired and the bed is turned down.  I know it before they know it themselves."

I remember feeling a recognition, a familiarity about those words.  There was one difference though, as I said before, unless someone was paying me or I felt it was important - I didn't care to put out the effort.

I think I did have some natural talent in this area, anyone who has ever been "sold" anything by a female member of my family has had the feeling that their brains have been temporarily suspended into a  Streisand-Vaseline lens haze when they agreed to whatever it is they agreed to do.  The glazed look that follows is one that any man I've ever lived with is quite used to wearing.  

I had the kind of upbringing that only fostered these natural inclinations.  We moved every three years or so until I was sixteen.  It was very important that I get a quick read of people, it was in my interest to take in all their character distinguishing details and quickly make them my own.  

I am an expert, when it means something to me, at the first flash of friendship, the first few weeks of acquaintance, but I can very rarely follow it up in the long term.  Those who have known me for a long time will have noticed this, I'm sure.  (My apologies for that by the way, I do care a great deal for so many of you, I'm just completely socially challenged this way.)

Then, there was being extremely ill during a time in most people's lives, their late teens/most of their twenties, that is generally full of health and frivolity.  I struggled to be diagnosed, to recover from surgeries, to adjust to being told I wouldn't have children, to deal with discovering I couldn't drink or eat anything enjoyable without a great deal of pain, to handling countless nights laying on the hardwood floor wondering would I even have the time in this body to do anything of worth, to being pushed into rooms with people who suffered like me and finding myself alone, the only one under the age of 60.  I knew, without a doubt, that all of these things were not talking points my peers or my fellow performers were likely to relate to, or be let in to, while they were focusing mainly on  squeezing themselves into tight denim, a sweaty dance floor and between some naughty person's legs.  I didn't have to be especially talented at reading people to know this, but it didn't hurt when it came to deciding what version of myself I must put out there to survive, adapt and succeed. 

When I landed myself tits-backward into the world of The-Improv-Sketch-Comedy-Theatre-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named by singing well at an improv audition, this ability bloomed. You see, nowhere is, pulling various people out of your ass to please others and presenting them as real, valued more than in the comedy world.  I caught on very quickly that women were expected to only fall into certain categories. Capable+ funny + woman,  is a combo that has to be decorated to please or not palpable at all when put out there by a certain type of lady.  Women were meant to be like the men they worked with, except for the boobs.  They should swear like men, fuck like men and mature like comedy men do — slowly.  This suited me fine, it was an easy persona for me to assume.  It is just a slightly altered one to the one I wore growing up with three brothers and playing on mainly male sports teams.  

So, what went wrong really?  Why do I find putting on my well worn armour, unsheathing my "special" talent and moving on with the shreds of my acting career not really all that comfortable anymore?

Well, after months of looking at people's faces after I got pregnant in a way that many felt had some stigma attached to it, after falling in love with someone who I had in no way anticipated to, after being away from my formerly buzzing career and ample stage opportunities, after having my confidence detonated by PPD/PPA, after having people not even bother to return an email or ignoring me completely when I had done them a great service earlier in my career, after becoming, horror or all horrors, a SAHM (or even learning what that acronym meant) - I just can't manage to get it up anymore.  I don't have the energy, I don't even want to have the energy - I just want to be the woman my fiance and baby girl loves.  

My plate-glass persona has cracked.

So now, I find myself at auditions and with people who I've worked with for years, at a loss.  I am floating without the thing I was best at beside me and frankly, it shows.  I'm allowing myself things I never allowed before.  I find myself speaking my mind, my actual thoughts to people regardless of what I know they'd like to hear.  The look on their faces is priceless.  I'm letting my vulnerable side show in the den of cats that is the audition waiting room, by doing what I have to do to care for my daughter and often looking stupid or soft while interacting with my fiance.  

I can't say I feel comfortable with this, but it is what it is now.  I am changed and I'm not sure it is reversible....and you know what, I'm not sure I want to change it.

The saddest part of it is, I'm not certain I am of much worth as a performer without it.  I'm not sure I would hire me anymore and I wouldn't blame me.  I don't think I actually fit in the comedy world naturally now.  I'm not much sure I'm welcome and I don't blame them either.  It's just how it is for a woman of my type, who came fairly close to perhaps getting to a place where others might want or need something of me, but had a baby and is not the same.

Don't get me wrong, I will always love performing.  I will always be game for the art.  I just have no taste lately for the game.  I'm just not so certain my soul can take another windshield replacement, now that it's gotten used to riding its bike naked.

I care less and less about other's approval, friends and family.  This doesn't mean I don't love them, need them or value their thoughts , I do.  Making my living, however, in a business that is all about approval though, is starting to become extremely challenging when I can't manage to get all hot and bothered about getting me some anymore.

I mean it is clear to me should this mood never pass and I decide to leave performing for good, there will be no real loss to the art form or anything.  There are a millions of women out there who are equally as talented, pretty and way more eager than I that are more than willing to take my place (no matter how small a place it is)...and run with it.  

No, what boundaries and choices I make in my life will generally only greatly affect me and my little family.  The rest of the world moves on and quite well without me out there running around in my bra on the telly.  It's just up to me and mine now.

So, I gotta make some choices.  Do I let it all just shatter and move on as the new, raw person I really am?  Or do I just pick up my pewter terrier and leave the game?

I'm still working it out.  

 

 

 

Squirrels Eat Short Story

So, I didn't make the very large cut in the writing contest in my programme. This was particularly shitty because one of the girls in my class, who wrote a story from the perspective of a squirrel, did.  

I kept thinking how I really missed the boat on animal fiction.  Perhaps next year, I should write a short story from the perspective of my half blind Maltipoo?  I could write a whole section about her palette for sheet chowder.

Anywho, I've been super discouraged lately, even before Squirrelpocalypse, about my ability to create anything worthwhile since I've become a mother...so I've been a bit more tender then I usually would be.  

However, I'm trying to focus on the fact that one bombed audition or one mediocre story does not mean I'm forever banished to the outskirts of success.  Even though it seems I've spend an awfully long time lately touring them alone with the top down.

So in honour of this whole changing focus thing, I thought I'd share the short story on my blog.  After all, it won't be the last mediocre thing I write.

So, here is Grand Island, a short story about a natural disaster.  Much of it is true and other things are totally made up.  Read at your own peril!

 

Download GrandIslandbyRebeccaDreiling2011

 

 

 

Cape-worthy

I have to admit something.  I think I am better than everyone else.  If I didn't, how else would someone have such high-ass expectations of themselves?  It is the logical conclusion.

Not only that, it seems to be a common trait my partner and I share.  The unrealistic expectation that we are somehow made of stronger stuff.  That, we must both be secret vampire slayers, Clarks in disguise or Bruce Willis in the Die Hard movies kind of tough.  Otherwise, our disappointment in not filling out those superhero tights would make no sense at all, right?

I've known about my own super-vixen expectation status for sometime.  I also recognized it in my SO right away.  Two immortals in our minds — how could we not fall for each other and have a baby that was never supposed to ever be?  

There is just one big catch, my body did not get the message that in my mind, I am a demigod.  My body likes to remember things like: I'm now in my mid thirties, I have fibromyalgia, I have had over five surgeries on my uterus, that I went through a high risk pregnancy, had PPD, am allergic to half the shit most people eat on a regular basis, am trying to learn to be a SAHM without the help of my family living nearby and I had a botched spinal tap less than a year ago.  My body is such a freaking killjoy.

Needless to say, there is a lot of knock down, drag-out fights between my body and mind. Unfortunately, it is kind of an unfair fight. My body will just stop and break...leaving my mind all dressed in customized mythical creature fighting leather with no ability to live up to its purpose.

The distance between what I think I should do/be and what I actually am is not dissimilar to the difference between the target audience for the Fresh Beats Band and the one for The Human Centipede.

Yesterday, for instance, my brain was seriously laying into my body for not running a ten minute mile.  That's right,  I was immobile, unable to get out of bed because of my serious chronic pain four years ago and I am upset I can't get my time down from eleven minutes to ten.  Now, someone who didn't think they were She-ra wouldn't really let that get them all gutted, but this is not the case with me.  I expect more because I am more...apparently.

I was recovering from my workout in the shower in the fetal position, letting the hot water hit the bottom of my spine and watching my two year old over the edge of the tub dancing to the ring tones on my phone.  By this point, I am well into telling myself and my SO how shit I am.  He reminded me that I can't compare myself to other normal "runners" because I am not normal, I am "special".  He explained that I should compare myself with other people who have the same set of diseases and struggles who don't manage to get out the door.  

"I know, I know Rebecca, you think you should do better than everyone else right?  Cause you work harder than most people, right?" he said.

"No, it's that I think no one has as much dedication and the ability to push past it all like me," I said. "But people have to take my word for it because on the outside all that hard work just makes me look average.  I have to kill myself to just maintain the status quo, it's not quantitive at all."

(Yes, I am pretentious enough to use the word "quantitive" in a bathroom conversation..remember I think I am better than most people.)

Meanwhile, I'm trying to explain myself to him and he keeps ducking in and out of our bedroom.  It is starting to really piss me off because here I am lying on the bottom of the tub expecting sympathy and he's off changing his underwear or something. So, I got myself up and out of the bathtub, turned off the shower and proceeded to get myself dressed despite being ignored and having my daughter point at my chest repeatedly yelling, "BOOBIES! BOOBIES"

Finally my SO walks in with this free internet "Certificate of Achievement" that he's filled out, signed and had my daughter scratch-sign with a pen.  Under the 'awarded for' section, he wrote, "For being the hardest working fibro-bitch in the world".  

Seriously.

I was never one of those kids who did better because some teacher gave me stickers or an award (I prefer to be yelled at and told I'm a piece of shit..that gives me motivation), but fuck if this didn't make me feel better.  

I put it up on the fridge so that every time I have to go feed my child or clean the dishes, I can look at it.  

I guess it took another super mutant-in-his-mind to know what I really, really wanted in that moment.  This broke-down Wonder Woman wanted the symbolic key to the city from the fictional mayor of the city.  Yeah, there is no actual big door that opens up the city's gates, just like there is no school issuing my certificate, but it still made me feel cape-worthy.

 

Apparently, this is a fibromyalgia superhero...

OMG, there are more of us out there!!!

The Definition of Neurotic and PMS Dreaming

It has been quite awhile since my last blog posting, but I've had renewed interest in sending messages out into the ether. Due to my fiance's work situation and new scheduling that was beyond my control. I have to wait a few months before going back to school and this outlet is as good as any.

That being said, I have much more free time to write for people who are not my teachers and/or published authors. This is relaxing in a way and extremely distressing in another.

I'm one of those forever-is-whatever-is-happening-now type people. Or as my old therapists like to call it: neurotic. I think being aware of this is good. However, given too much time to ponder that awareness while wiping snot off your toddler's bugger nozzle ends up turning me from a quirky, Woody Allen type neurotic to a full on As Good As it Gets shut in without the Nicholson charm.

So, I guess you could say I miss school.

Still, life is not all being sideswiped by rollerbladers and getting punched in the eye by a cardboard box by your two year old (true stories) lately.

I finally got a gig post baby on the ole television. It is a small spot, but I was damned grateful for the work. My only glitch is that the eight month old baby I had to carry in a bucket car seat was the same weight as the aforementioned two year old. Seriously, the kid was massive. Let's just say I earned my session through sweat.

Still, working was really nice. I'm going to enjoy the feeling because the US dollar is so shit and my industry is really hurting. It may be awhile before I'm booking something again.

Whelp, it is time to melt into my mattress and trip off into an uneven PMS sleep....mmm...weird dreams about flowing rivers and small animals nesting in my uterus (true story).


 

Went for a run in the cemetery today in the freezing cold. Yeah I know, I'm whining (or whinging if you're a studying to fight the dark lord at Hogwarts), compared with the global warming sunburn I got last weekend, it was friggin nippy. Mike, Vi and Rip all waited for me around the other side. I was lucky not to get sandwiched on the road by a hopeless group of men trying to lift a large metal dumpster with a makeshift crane...still a good run all in all (they did destroy a pine tree though).

Mike has been a beast at work and doing reno jobs. We're both so tired, we're a bit like Zombie Mom and Dad walking the apt. I'd still like to roll around in the bed naked with Zombie Mike/Dad but its a risk as I might eat one of his limbs.

Speaking of eating...I've been less than honest with myself and others. I always have to be on top of things when it comes to pressuring myself to look/be a certain way. My eating disorder, you know the other drunk skinny bitch in my head, has been flaring up a bit. I know a lot of people, when they are stressed, eat. I know I used to, fuck, I used to binge like a champ. Now though, when I get stressed, I don't eat anything. I guess I figure, I'm not bingeing, nor will I ever, its just not in me anymore, starving myself is no biggie. I know this is all bullshit, garb justification to repeat unhealthy behaviours. At least, I'm on top of it and trying to get back into my routine. The bitch of it is, it doesn't even help me loose weight in the short run. My body just goes into survival mode and holds on to the fat..you know cause I'm starving myself. Yeah, I think it's important to put it out there though. It's good for me to know that, even though I delude myself into thinking I've got this really in control/together facade, I'm really a bit of a nutter who is in no way perfect. I'm a lovable nutter though and this is shit I don't want my daughter modelling (the starving stuff not the nutter stuff...I hope she's just a little bit of a nutter). For some reason, if it's out there in the ether, I have to be a bit more accountable.

Anywho, good night you, all you curious souls.

On a side note,

Who else is quite breathing a sight of relief that they don't have to watch Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy talk about how they have become enlightened souls because of their love match? I'm so happy I don't have to watch another Oprah where Jenny vomits up garb about Jim being so FUNNY and an unbelievable man. EWW...thank you Jenny and Jim, you can go back to being annoying and self involved by yourselves. These are the things I sometimes think about.

It's been awhile. Teething and a classical acting class has eaten up my night time blog time. Both consuming and painful to watch at times....it's all about growing though isn't it?

Vi is crawling now and is getting harder to bring to the gym. It's fine when I time it perfectly and get her down there when she naps. However, that doesn't always happen and I have to look for alternatives. I'm still managing to do my weights most days though. She just starts to wail if I'm on the machines doing cardio for too long.

So alternatives...I've had to get creative. I go out for a walk with Mike and run through the cemetery, meeting up with them on the other side. I can't run everyday however because of my pelvic surgeries and the chronic issues with the high impact aspects of the sport. It's like a special treat, I can do it if I only do it in small amounts and with less frequency. Like me and salsa...basically (the stuff you dip corn chips in, not the hot latin dance that all the kids are crazy about).

With the weather turning warm so early this year (and yes, I know we'll probably still have another couple crap weeks in April. We're almost there though people.), I've gone out to the park. Walking doesn't get my heart rate up the way I like. So, I came up with a solution today. I strapped Vi to my chest with the Baby Bjorn rip off and ran the several sets of stairs in sets of 10. Then when I felt throughly thrashed, I went back to the building and scaled the stairs up the high rise apt I live in. My poor little 8 pound dog did it all with us. She was breathing so hard and muking at each door we hit past the sixth floor. Just shows how out of shape she is too...that and her legs are the length of both my thumbs touching tips.

I'm also looking to get a second hand running stroller. As well, I'm thinking weighing down Vi's stroller when I walk might put an extra kick into everyday walking.

I seem to be steadily losing the inches but of course the perfectionist me is one harsh bitch. She is relentless and likes to call me fat, lazy or a combo of the two: 'fazy' (She's creative too, apparently.). I'm working on not listening to the crazy lady in my head who calls me 'fazy' but she's been hanging round up there for awhile, drunk and telling me what she really thinks of me-it's not easy (Especially when I only have one pair of pants that I've bought since pregnancy that fit...the rest are hopelessly to big or tiny like the elf I once was.).

Love to you all who read my travelog through post pregnancy. My baby is 8 months old as of a few days ago and I'm still just blindly fumbling my 'fazy' ass through this shit storm. Still, I've fallen hard for that little girl and I want to give her something to look up to. So many friends and relatives are either pregnant or just gave birth. I want to prove to them and to myself that you can, with a huge amount of patience, get your body and your brain back. Cause if this PPD case can do it, any of you can.